A Member of My Family Decided That He Was “Really A Woman”

July 6, 2014

I cannot believe I found this site! I’ve been reading the archives for a day and a half now, practically crying with joy that I’m not the only woman in the world who feels this way.

I’m not actually a radical feminist; I’m kind of not really a feminist at all (nor am I Christian). In fact, it never occurred to me that there was anything radical or “fringe” in, for example, thinking, “How do *you* know what being a woman feels like?” when a man claims he’s “felt like a woman all his life.” I never thought it was somehow radical to look back at my life and be insulted that some man who never dealt with any of the issues or situations in life that I or any/most/all other women dealt with thinks he knows what that was like, or in the idea that a woman is a collection of life experiences, feelings, and thoughts and not some sort of doll that is created out of the air. I was born a female; _growing up_ female made me a woman. When Julie Burchill wrote her column a few years ago I was thrilled, only to see other women–friends, some of whom were feminists, some of whom were lesbians, even–denigrating her. I agreed with every word she said.

I’m going to try to keep this short. I don’t want to drown you in words. But a member of my family–my stepfather-in-law–decided about fifteen years ago that he was “really” a woman. He claimed to have gotten tests that “proved” this. The effect it had on my MIL was devastating, not least because he had for years led her to believe that all of their problems, sexual and otherwise, were HER fault. That she was somehow inadequate as a woman, that she was unexciting, that she was too sensitive, that she just didn’t have the brains and sharp killer instincts of a man. Then he decided to be a “woman,” and fully expected her to stay married to him. He was very angry that she refused; what was wrong with her, that she wasn’t supporting him by remaining his wife and letting him stay in their marital home and teaching him how to apply make-up? Did she think she had a right not to be forced into a lesbian marriage (nothing wrong with lesbian marriage, of course, but it’s not really what most hetero women look for) or something?

All of this was infuriating for my husband and myself, as well as the FIL’s two children–his son moved to another country, he was so devastated by this. My FIL didn’t care. He’d run out and gotten himself hormones and told us how he felt so good all the time, almost high, and it was so amazing–it was less than six months after he made the decision and he’d already had the facial feminization surgery. He also decided that he didn’t feel like waiting the two years for the full reassignment surgery, so went to his elderly mother, convinced her to hand over the money that would be his inheritance (money my MIL was supposed to get an equal share of), and ran off to Prague to become a castrato with boobs. He then changed his name to one of the most stereotypical drag queen names you’ve ever heard (hint: it’s the name of a song mentioned in this thread, with a “St. ___” as the last name) and proceeded to meet up online with a bunch of other unsavory delusionists, with whom he’d go clubbing almost every night in full drag-queen-feminine-caricature regalia.

What’s funny–if by “funny” you mean “disgusting”–is that his behavior hasn’t changed one iota. There is nothing feminine about him, nothing womanly. He mansplains; he interrupts; he corrects; he expects my MIL (they have remained friends, and he goes to her place regularly for dinner) to cook for him and clean up after while he snores on her couch; he thinks everyone admires him. He thinks his mutilation and pseudo-woman persona makes him special and interesting.

(In the last year or two his health has begun to fail, and he at least once told my MIL he regrets the surgery. Well, that’s what happens when you decide indulging a sex fetish is going to fix all the things you don’t like about yourself as a person. It’s called gender reassignment surgery, not create-a-whole-new-person surgery. There’s a reason why a 2011 Swedish study found that 40% of post-op transexuals attempt suicide, and 10% of them succeed. Also, all those studies they like to trot out about the brains of M2T transgenders [did I use the term correctly?] being just like those of real women? Not only is that not completely accurate, but those were cadaver brains, the brains of dead post-op post-hormone transgenders. Who’s to say that years of hormones didn’t create those changes?)

It’s very clear to me and has been for years that this whole “woman trapped in a man’s body” thing is either a fetish or a psychological disorder/problem caused by childhood abuse. And I have more to say on that but this is already way too long, for which I apologize. I’m just so excited to finally be able to say this!

Oh, one last quick thing. Years ago I saw this TV documentary on trans surgery. I was absolutely dumbfounded when the post-op M2T mentions how he won’t know how it all turns out until he “pees out of his new vagina.” (Happens @40 minutes in.)

He’s just had surgery to give him a poor facsimile of ladyparts, and he is so ignorant about them that he thinks women urinate through their vaginas. THIS is how irresponsible and neglectful the doctors who “treat” these people are; they have mutilated his genitals without even once sitting him down with a diagram and showing him what a woman’s vulva actually looks like and what the parts of it do. He wants to be a woman–he claims he *is* a woman “inside”–but has so little curiosity, so little interest in the reality of a woman’s body, that he never bothered to learn for himself, either. It’s not like that information isn’t readily available; he just didn’t care enough, it seems, to take a few minutes to see what those genitals he apparently feels so wrong and sick without actually are. Because yeah, no real woman has any interest in what her genitals do. :rolleyes Did he think the doctor was just going to fashion his skin into a sexy unicorn?

Anyway. Sorry for the length, and I hope I haven’t offended or upset you or jumped in where I’m not welcome. I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve read here so much. Thank you for letting me comment and for the stand you’re taking here.

136 Responses to “A Member of My Family Decided That He Was “Really A Woman””

This story is just heart breaking. Your poor MIL. I remember a story like this on Oprah, maybe ten years ago. His wife stayed with him, but they didn’t sleep together, so I assume he’d had the penectomy because his wife said she wasn’t a lesbian. I remember wondering how long they planned to live that way, especially since they were probably only in their late thirties.

And there being nothing in the least bit womanly about him seems to be a recurring theme. I haven’t seen one, not one, of these guys who seem the least bit womanly to me. I’ve met many men over the years that I would have a lot less trouble believing were transgender. Not because they were “effeminate,” though some were, but all of them had primarily been reared in women’s spaces absent any other males for the most part. These trans doods were never “princess boys” and they have definitely maintained their masculine gender roles.

Plus, and forgive me for saying this, but what on earth has happened to the basic maintenance standards amongst trans women? Back in the eighties when I first encountered trans women they seemed to put a lot more effort into their appearance. These doods don’t even seem to be trying. All the trans I knew were black, and maybe that made a difference. It’s been my experience that black men in general put more effort into their appearance than white guys. These guys look like they’re going to put on a frat house skit.

“Plus, and forgive me for saying this, but what on earth has happened to the basic maintenance standards amongst trans women? Back in the eighties when I first encountered trans women they seemed to put a lot more effort into their appearance. These doods don’t even seem to be trying. All the trans I knew were black, and maybe that made a difference. It’s been my experience that black men in general put more effort into their appearance than white guys. These guys look like they’re going to put on a frat house skit.”
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This made me LOL.

Janet Mock and Laverne Cox are definitely more of the traditional transwoman model, feminine appearance, feminine behavior (in superficial terms at least), and much more attractive than many other transitioners I’ve come across, certainly more so than many of the white MTFs. It makes sense that they’re the media-friendly spokespeople for their cause. A late transitioning white MTF would raise a lot of alarms for people who don’t think too deeply about the ramifications of MTFs sharing the same spaces as minor girls.

It seems like most of the Black male trans are gay men. I don’t see a lot of late-transitioning autogynophile Black trans. I don’t see a lot of Black transvestic fetishists/ crossdressersat all. If I wasn’t really strapped for time right now I would try to dig up some statistics on this. I think M2T for hetero men is a massive display of privilege- and it is very interesting to think about how white privilege intersects (😉 ) with male privilege vis a vis autogynephilia and late transitioning hetero crossdressers. (For feminine Black Gay men transing can be an adaptive strategy.)

But let’s not disappear straight black guys from the glorious trans history!

I wouldn’t be here now if it weren’t for the craziness of Roberta Angela Dee (always with the three names!) and if he weren’t dead, he’d be here harassing you, too. (Thankfully, Monica Roberts has created various shrines to him.)

It was Dee who first showed me that the gendah experts in the ivory tower were perfectly at home citing someone who behaved like Krusty the Clown as a guru:

I think it’s an adaptive strategy as well. Laverne Cox actually talks about how he’s feared as a black man. And there’s that whole “The only free people in this country are white men and black women thing.” So yeah, the role of trans in the black community is a whole other story. I read somewhere that most black M2T are gay. And I have to say this is why I was so shocked to discover that most m2T are het, or at least not gay. I really would love to see some good data on it, because I don’t think the vast majority of black women are aware of this fact. I think if they were you would see a major sea change as far as their support for trans goes.

Journal of GLBT Family Studies
Volume 6, Issue 3, 2010
Transsexuals of Color: Perceptions of Discrimination Based on Transsexual Status and Race/Ethnicity Status,

which only has 22 M2T & 11 F2T.

I’m confused given statements such as:
“Erich, Tittsworth, Dykes, and Cabuses (2008) reported
that transsexuals had average self-esteem scores, suggesting clinically significant difficulties in this area of functioning.”

Being AVERAGE is an issue???? And Erich is an author on BOTH papers, so you can’t say they are misreading their own paper. Frankly, looks like a load of nonsense, pretty much.

Although of the 33, majority under 40, majority single, and majority straight or gay (as opposed to lesbian or anything else). Also majority earning less than 50K.

Plus with this type of research, I suspect what results you get highly dependant on what questions you ask on the questionnaire, which depends on what YOU think the interesting research questions are. Hence a whole load of guff about a multi-theoretical framework. I suspect if you ask a group of only 33 people enough questions, you can probably come up with any nonsense you want. They DIDN’T seem to ask what we might have suggested, which is if gay, does previous experience of homophobia have anything to do with stuff? Or does that get all wrapped up with ‘gender’, so it was assumed they were getting hassle cos of their gender status, when it was just common or garden homophobia? Of course, then you have to ask the racist homophobe concerned WHY they were discriminating against that person, which is not usually regarded as a safe research technique by your university ethics committee……………..

Paper also refers to gender being considered as a binary is BAD, and discrimination results in low self-esteem which is BAD. Nothing here about ACTUAL violence then, just the same ole myth of low self-esteem. Although I guess they do self-esteem because they can ‘measure’ it with their questionnaires

I think I’m just naturally suspicious about Psychological sciences departments, which seem to make whole papers out of asking a handful of people some questions. I don’t CARE about p-values and whatever bogus stats and measures you throw at me, if you only have 22 people (M2T group), then I really don’t believe much of what you are claiming especially when you try to jazz it up and make it look as complicated as you can. Basicaly trying to make it look all quantitative and PROPER science, when it isn’t.

That is very interesting and makes sense about it being an adaptive strategy for Black Gay men. We are so bombarded with the het men destroying what little we have left and perving on us (at almost every local older Lesbian event I go to now, there is at least one, and last night a friend encouraged her big and very privileged trannie man friend to dance with us, where we already had almost no space to move) — that I tend to forget the group of M2Ts who are gay men trying to pass as het women to be with men.

My eyes immediately glaze over when I see queer theory stuff. I know that makes me sound anti-intellectual, but I’m not, honest. I just can’t be arsed with it. (I hope UK readers don’t mind my using the term “arsed” – I just think it works so well. It seems to combine “I can’t be tasked with it” with “I can’t be bothered to get off my ass/arse to do this”, which is exactly what I was going for.)

Roslyn and FabFro, I agree – so many young white guys are slobs! The most “dressed up” they ever get is a clean pair of khakis with a polo shirt, and that’s on a good day.

And yeah, Gallus, good point about how white privilege coincides with autogynephilia and especially the late transitioners…these guys are so soaked in it they can’t even see it. It’s such an entrenched part of their psyches that they can’t begin to step away from it to recognize it.

I kind of feel the same way. I did support a lower-level version of queer theory that one of my internet friends was into for a while. Interestingly, we both realized how ridiculous it was at roughly the same time, though she’s less cynical than me and thinks that there might be a few parts that aren’t totally bad. I’ve read stuff on it because I believe in being well-informed but it’s hard to make any sense of it because it makes no sense. The link anon male posted is one of the worst things of queer theory, but at the same time it’s illuminating because it is so contradictory. Also, with them talking about how FTMs want to avoid lesbian spaces so they can pass as men and how they might want to up the masculinity is interesting and suggests to me that gender (aka sex roles) is made up and not an innate feeling. Ditto for there whole thing about reclaiming femininity in a different way. If there was ever an argument for abolishing gender, it’s the fact that that book is supposed to be logical.

I was going to take a queer theory class in school, but I dropped it since I didn’t have enough time. I did buy the books for it though. The “Chicana Lesbians” one was pretty good, but the other one whose name I don’t remember was ridiculous. I was only able to read parts of it. My favorite part was the section about how genderqueer might be problematic because not too many “queer women of color” were calling themselves that. To me it indicates that maybe it just means that not as many lesbian or bisexual women of color have lost their marbles with the gender bullshit as white women. I say good for them.

@GallusMag — I have noticed this too, and I think you’re absolutely right. There’s something about the white, hetero, male combo that makes these guys particularly entitled and terrifying. I think it also plays into how enraged they become with a lack of obedience on the part of women. They have gotten what they wanted all their lives, and now some women are telling them “no” and they are furious and think the way to deal with it is to threaten violence. I do have to say Monica Roberts gives them a run for their money, but for the most part, the scariest ones are the white heteros, to me anyway.

“The effect it had on my MIL was devastating, not least because he had for years led her to believe that all of their problems, sexual and otherwise, were HER fault. That she was somehow inadequate as a woman…”

For over 30 years, that’s EXACTLY what happened to me.
That’s what hurt more than anything else, that he let me BELIEVE there was something wrong with me because he didn’t have the courage to face himself.
So he USED me all those years to “appear” normal.

Every single moment and memory, now distorted through this knowledge and recognition of decades of lies, deceit and duplicity.

I am so sorry that happened to you, too. And yes, that’s exactly how my MIL felt: used, and like her life had been a lie. She was just a front for him, a beard, while he told her she was unreasonable and “letting herself go” and whatever other nonsense. And while he’s given a half-assed apology for his actions, he has never apologized for what he did to her sense of self, her sexual confidence, or her self-esteem. She has never entered another romantic relationship because of those issues, and because of her completely understandable (but still incorrect) worry that something she did caused it, or that something must be wrong with her that she didn’t detect this about him, or that her sexuality must be skewed because of the “man” she attracted.

She lost years of her life, the years that she could have been using to find someone else. She lost financially. She lost her home, since in their divorce agreement they had to sell their house and split the profit, which wasn’t much. Her retirement became a completely different situation than she’d been planning on.

(Oh, and I forgot to say: she confided in me once that from the time they got together he liked wearing women’s underwear as foreplay or whatever; it was a definite fetish he had. I’ve never told my husband this as I think it would upset him further, but autogynephilia, anyone?)

A close female friend of mine’s husband was a (secret) cross dresser for 20 years+; 20 years during which he continually rejected her (sexually and otherwise intimately) whilst blaming her for the failure of their ‘normal’ marriage. She’ll not get those years back and the pain of the revelation and fallout – she’s got two kids from the ‘marriage’ – as far as we know, has been successfully kept from the kids, now in their 20s.

I didn’t know this when I began following GenderTrender but being a man I I can’t help but have an insight into this guy’s inner life: I don’t think these fetishes are purely a product of social conditioning: there’s a ‘hardwired’ aspect too. I’m surely not the only non-feminist and ‘cis’-person who recognizes that there’s something kooky and all too predictable about these ‘unsatisfactory outcomes’ of aggressive heteronormativity…

Radical feminists are owed much for being bothered to analyze these kind of cases in terms of their impact on wider society in contrast to the self-centred reportage that passes for popular, liberal thinking. More folks need to be aware of this…

Being single can be way more harmful to women when it comes to finances than to men. Women often lose out economically because of MTTs, whether it’s because they pay for the surgery and hormones, or because they ended up going through a divorce like what happened with your MIL.

What’s worse is now the autogynophilic CEOs (and other high-paid males) are legally recognized as “female since forever”, it’s going to skew the statistics on women’s economic disparity. Women already make less than men do and that statistic about women making 76 cents to a man’s dollar or whatever it is now? Only applies to white women and white men. For black women the income gap is even bigger and that doesn’t get reported on nearly enough and now I wouldn’t be surprised if conservatives started claiming there was no income gap because look at all the trans “women” CEOs.

(The same goes for crime statistics being skewed when these men are legally recognized as women.)

Your story and Dorothy’s about her step-FIL remind me of women I’ve known married to gay men (a little fact they were unaware of). They were told they were unattractive and needed to lose weight (one woman was petite and very thin); it was all their fault their husbands didn’t want a sexual relationship.

All I can hope is that women who have been through this nonsense shout to the world, “No more!” minimize contact with these exploitative abusers, and get on with their lives.

..and me.. ^^ yes.yes yes. .. also realising that the information you now have about your partner reframes many past incidents as abusive.. the realisation that you have been duped and gaslighted to this extent for so long is devastating…

This post/comment was really informative. Especially about the part of that dood thinking he’d now have to pee out of his vagina. Indeed, that should have been something the doctors should have went over before he got the surgery. But who cares about common sense when there’s money and feefees at stake!

For men, the only parts of women that matter are breasts and vaginas. “You mean there’s more to female genitalia than vaginas? Fie, I say! Everyone knows all women have down there is a vag. The rest is just extra skin that we don’t care about since it doesn’t gratify us sexually.”

@ Dorothy Mantooth- Now ain’t that the sad truth? That and the G-spot is the clitoris, that’s why so many women have orgasms through the vagina!!…Dear word.

@bethanyalexandertate- LOL! Careful, you may give the trans some ideas, and the next thing you know he’ll be teaching classes which will magically turn into a reality TV show. Or, wait, is it ‘Best selling book’ then ‘#1 hit TV show’ to further educate the laydees?

Also, no one will question why there is no mention or classes for the FtT…But their excuse will probably be “It’s because they’re men now; they’re privilaged, unlike us. As women we have no teachings on our bodies.”

Because more people need to know about the “distended clitoris” that can ejaculate…
Blech.

this story is so sad. there is a thread of narcissism throughout it that reminds me of my sibling who transitioned a long time ago….tell your MIL that she has done absolutely nothing wrong except maybe love someone who clearly does not love her back. i would advise her to kick the SOB “to the curb” and never cook dinner for him again!! She needs to reclaim her own womanhood.

Really heartbreaking post, and for whatever reason, this is what gets me the most: “he expects my MIL (they have remained friends, and he goes to her place regularly for dinner) to cook for him and clean up after while he snores on her couch.”

Does anybody ever call him on this crap? I wouldn’t be surprised if he brings his laundry over, too. But hey we all try to get away with what we can. If someone cooked and cleaned for me, I wouldn’t say no. The person who needs to stop this is your MIL.

There was a bestseller from like the 70s called How to Be Your Own Best Friend, about being assertive and not being a doormat. The author’s friend had asked her to help plan a fabulous party, but then told her, sorry, you won’t be invited. And she did it anyway. That was her turning point. At some point we have to assert ourselves.

We’ve tried. My husband and I have repeatedly tried to get her to do that. The problem is, he does do things for her; he takes her places, he picks up groceries for her, he runs errands when she’s not feeling well–none of these things happen regularly, but they happen often enough that she feels the friendship isn’t all one-sided. And she doesn’t have a lot of friends–most of her friends are married still to men who don’t play dress-up games, so they aren’t often available on Friday nights, for example–or people to keep her company. So I think at this point, as much as his continued manipulations of her and his selfishness still bother her quite a bit (at least twice a year she says she’s done and will have nothing more to do with him) she does want/need someone in her life, and they do generally get along with each other.

My MIL is not a very strong woman, sadly. Back when all this started we urged her to head straight to a divorce lawyer and get what she could, but she didn’t, and that’s part of the reason she’s so screwed now financially. (Of course, him spending his inheritance and a bunch of his retirement money on boobs, a facelift, and a dickectomy has left him in pretty bad straits, too, but I don’t feel so bad for him, just as I wouldn’t expect people to feel bad for me if I spent my life’s savings on, say, building a castle of ice on the beach in Miami.) I think she’s just scared of being totally alone at this point, and figures better the devil she knows, really.

” The problem is, he does do things for her; he takes her places, he picks up groceries for her, he runs errands when she’s not feeling well–none of these things happen regularly, but they happen often enough that she feels the friendship isn’t all one-sided.”
—
This got me thinking on how we have a [very] low expectation of men due to our society, which tells us he can be a lazy poop bag for 364 days, because all it takes is for him to do something sorta sweet for one day [clean the toilet?], and voila! we’re taught to coo and awww over that. ALL IS FORGIVEN!
That him doing something “sweet” that’s randomly and rarely done should wipe the slate clean of his daily misogyny.
Amazing.

That is so true. There is a social brainwashing going on here. For example, think of how many romantic comedy movies there are where the man “wins back” his ex-girlfriend or ex-wife with some grand romantic gesture, no change in the jerk behavior that lead to the breakup. Bonus of the ex-girlfriend gets a new man who’s way more of a jerk than the old one, so the former boyfriend (aka the hero) is portrayed as the lesser of the two evils and she must choose one, instead of choosing neither and being single.

And of course, there’s the bumbling male idiot in sitcoms. I like some sitcoms, but it’s clear to me that the message is that a woman can be very attractive, funny, smart, and even successful at work and that in spite of these good qualities the best she can to is get some man who is average-looking at best and worse still, is an idiot who constantly does stupid shit and lies to her about it, like she’s his new mommy and he’s trying to hide stuff from her.

Relationships like the one between Dorothy’s MIL and her ex-husband are fairly common, where the man does something nice one in a while to make it appear not one-sided, because if he never helped out once in a while, his ass would be kicked to the curb. It’s a calculating move, he knows what he’s doing.

Abusers also operate in a similar logic where they shower their victims with excessive amounts of love and affection and promise they’ll change because people would be tipped of if they started off as being abusive 24/7.

So depressingly true. I was trying to point out to my mum the other day how unfair it is that she still does everything even though my dad is retired, and though she agreed, she just said, kind of uncertainly, that, well, sometimes wives nag, and I shouldn’t try to make out it’s all men’s fault. I know why she thinks that, too – he’s always acted like she’s nagging if she asks him to do any little thing, and will hardly ever just do it right away, it often ends up less trouble for her to do it herself than to ask him. Bastard actually has her believing it’s in some way her fault. I think she at least saw my point that women wouldn’t HAVE to ask more than once if men would just do their fair share around the house, but I wish she wouldn’t put up with it.

Women do have such low expectations for men, they’re never taught to really expect anything better. And men are just so good at acting like they’re entitled to praise for doing something a woman does every day, and at making sure asking them to do anything drains even more of our energy than doing it ourselves. Total abusive mindfuck, really.

My heart just breaks for the women like the poster’s MIL, having to deal with MtT antics, and being pressured and vilified instead of supported. I hope the support network can be set up Ok, definitely important to establish resources like that. Maybe even the LibFems will start caring if more het women share their stories…though I’m not holding my breath.

There is, sadly, a bit more to the story. Like the way society, including other women, sometimes shames my MIL for not staying, as if she did something wrong. Because she was supposed to be “supportive,” which meant allowing herself to remain in a sham marriage because it would make HIM feel good. She was expected to sacrifice her own needs and happiness for his, because that’s what a good wife/woman does. I have my issues with my MIL but she did not and does not ever deserve this; she was made to feel less than human, she was shamed and belittled, her life was destroyed at an age where she shouldn’t have had to worry about starting again alone.

A short while after he made this decision, HBO made a movie called “Normal.” Anyone seen it? My MIL was told to watch the film, because it would help her “understand.” And we all thought it would focus on the devastating effects such a decision could have on a family, including a young man who looks to his father to see what a man should be and a young woman who does the same, and who already gets enough bizarre and ridiculous messages about what it is to be a woman from the media etc.

Anyway, in the end, the “Normal” man’s wife stays with him. Because she loves him no matter what, see, and the fact that she’s expected to just become a lesbian–as if lesbianism is a dress women can just put on and not an actual genuine part of a person’s identity, as if lesbians are just women who couldn’t get a man so decided they’d be with women instead, because unlike gay men lesbians have a choice; it’s all just treating lesbians as if they’re silly girls who date other girls on a whim–is treated as no big deal, because for women it’s about who they love and not the body parts involved. A woman who refuses to become a lesbian is just being difficult and unsupportive. (The other message in there, of course, is that women do not marry for any reason other than companionship and women’s sexuality and sexual needs are unimportant. The idea that a hetero woman might actually want sex with a _man_, that a male body might be a turn-on for her, that a hetero woman might actually require or desire the presence of a penis to arouse or satisfy her and might actually want that penis available to her on a regular basis, isn’t mentioned. Everyone knows women only do it “for him,” right?)

Very little mention is made in the film about the fact that the wife, being the age she is, has very few options if she wants a partner in life at that point, so his actions result in an unhappy dilemma for her: stay with him as he undergoes this “change,” and at least have companionship and financial help/support, or be a single mother alone for possibly the rest of her life. Her decision is treated with great approval in the film, as the only right choice for a woman to make if she truly loves her husband. It made my MIL cry and feel even more ashamed of herself, as if she’d abandoned her marriage vows, when in fact he was the one who did so.

And this is a message I see time and time again, that women should just stand by their men even if their men decide to play gender switcheroo on them. I’ve seen quite a few married M2T men who whine and complain and get very angry when their wives decide to leave; the entitlement is breathtaking. They call their girlfriends or wives names, they talk about how hurt they are by the “betrayal.” And no one argues with them. No one ever even points out that their female partners are probably feeling pretty betrayed themselves (along with the tremendous insecurity and fear about their own sexuality and worth as a woman, when the man who claims to love and desire them decides he wants to be a woman). Their dismissal of the feelings of the real women in their lives, their callous disregard of the women they claim to love, is never commented upon. It’s all about those evil womens who won’t let them “be themselves,” or don’t “really” love him; never mind the fact that hetero people don’t generally fall in love with people of the same gender, that part of what attracts hetero women and makes us fall in love is the *maleness* of the person we’re with, just as I imagine lesbians may love their male friends but do not fall in love with them, and part of what makes them fall in love with their partners is their *femaleness*. (Please forgive me if I have phrased that badly or if I am incorrect in that assumption; I mean absolutely no offense if I am.) Their wives or girlfriends are expected to be an enthusiastic audience/cheering section to their fascinating new game of dress-up and give them all of the attention they crave to gratify their egotistical needs, and spend hours teaching them how to dress and apply make-up and walk in heels. Why wouldn’t they want to do that–it’s not like women have other interests besides clothes and make-up, right?

No one expects a married man to stay with his wife when she becomes a F2T; there is no societal pressure on them to be “supportive” by completely changing their sexual orientation. But this is what we expect of women and we shame them when they don’t abide by it. Male privilege, male privilege, male privilege, and men taking advantage of it even while claiming they’re “really” women. They automatically put themselves and their feelings above those of their women, and act as if it is the duty of the women to go along with it. Then they refuse to see how very male such behavior and expectations are and deny that it has anything to do with being raised male in our society–because they’ve “always been women, inside” and “reacted to life the way women do.” Uh-huh.

Again, apologies for the length of my comments. I have just had this all bottled up inside for so long.

Snark aside, I think this really drives home that women need to cut and run as soon as possible when they find themselves in a bad relationship. Men don’t have the same worries about financial stability or of not being able to find another partner as they age, so there’s no real urgency for them to get out of relationships that are obviously not going anywhere. Women do have credible worries about this, and it’s just so disgusting that women are pressured into staying in broken relationships.

The lack of sympathy for the woman who has been in a marriage with the man who decides to “become” a woman is a common thread in these stories. It was exceptionally well told in Christine Benvenuto’s “Sex Changes.” People were so enamored with the liberal ideal of helping this autogynephile embrace his so-called “true self” that they were completely unsympathetic to its effect on his wife and children and in fact condemned her for not being willing to roll over and let his gender theater take over her life and that of her children.

Aaagh, I am so angry at the first paragraph I could barely stand to read the rest. These selfish assholes turn their wives’ and children’s lives upside down, make them laughingstocks, all so they can indulge their delusions. Then to have the audacity to shame the ones who just can’t stay, who I think are the strong ones because they are not cowed by political correctness! It is just despicable.

Men are encouraged to pursue any folly to be themselves, their true selves that only require multiple surgeries and relearning how to walk, talk, and dress to be the person they already are, yeah right. Your MIL is not the one forcing everyone to bow to her needs; she’s probably put her needs last all her life. And yet she gets accused of selfishness.

If he had instead started drinking or doing drugs, or some other self-destructive act, people would be shouting at her to leave.

I wonder what he and guys like him expect sex to be once they lose the penis and no longer can have PIV sex in a traditional relationship. Not to be crass but I wonder if these dudes even give oral, which a lot of guys see as foreplay before the real sex. I just doubt it. Everything seems to still be about satisfying them.

I want to hug your MIL, I want to give her the recognition and understanding and validation that she deserves. I also want to kick her a little so she stops cooking for this nut job. I’m glad she has you and your husband on her side, at least.

Maybe someday there will be a documentary from the viewpoint of the people who get put through the wringer and she can force him to watch it.

I’m so sorry for everything your MIL is going through, it’s a testament to the woman hatred that permeates the whole gender agenda. So by their logic: Your MIL needs to “become a lesbian” to be supportive of her pervert husband. If she doesn’t become a lesbian, she’s a bigot. But lesbians are naturally bigots anyway since they don’t want a penis during sex. So the perfect lesbian in their eyes is…..a straight woman accepting the penis of her transwoman husband who practically showers in his male privilege?

I’m wondering if your MIL’s detractors will expect her husband to become more “motherly” to their children. If he’s a woman now, he should have no problem taking a big pay cut at work while taking care of the cleaning and laundry.

Yes, exactly. The humiliation my MIL suffered from this is ongoing even now, and it was/is made worse by the fact that for years he would get all dolled up in his fanciest drag outfits and go out to local bars and clubs in their medium-sized town. Most people knew who he was. She worked for a fairly large local company and everyone knew who she was, too, and while few people mentioned it to her she could feel their eyes on her and hear snippets of gossip.

As for sex, she never went into great details with me (for obvious reasons, and I was just as happy to have her refrain), but I know he hoped and expected that they would continue to have a sex life. The idea of dildos came into play, I know, but while there’s certainly nothing wrong with toys and they can be a useful/fun part of any couple’s bedroom activities, she felt humiliated by the idea; to her he was basically suggesting they play out a farce, and she did not at all like the idea of using a dildo on him, which was something she gave me the impression he wanted. It honestly didn’t seem to occur to him that inserting a dildo into her husband’s Frankenvagina wouldn’t appeal to her. I know at one point he bemoaned their lack of sex life, which IMO took a lot of nerve.

I do wish someone would do such a documentary, yeah, because all of the TV shows etc. I’ve seen about trans people focus on the trans and their difficulties and blah blah blah, and if the wife/children aren’t on board they’re either excluded or painted as jerks. I read an article about the LA sportswriter who started to transition, then stopped, then killed himself, and it mentioned his wife a few times in a tone that seemed to imply it was somehow her fault for not being “accepting,” and that her family were meanies for feeling like he’d “done something to her,” and that’s generally the party line in all such articles and shows. It’s shameful.

That whole thing made me angry! I feel like giving your mother-in-law a hug and I never even met her, but it’s so messed up. It’s terribly funny, in a morbid sort of way that siding with these autogynophilic men instead of their wives and children is considered the height of political correctness instead of just the status quo. Christine Benvenuto was also subject to a campaign of harassment and bullying when she published “Sex Changes” and her ex-husband used all his connections to do it. But hey, even though people sided with the husband in perusing his delusional fantasy over Benvenuto, he’s still the most oppressed because he’s twanz. I used to think being politically correct just meant not saying blatantly sexist, racist and homophobic things, but this is just madness.

I am not too surprised that the movie did the “hearts-not-parts” plus lesbophobia equation. Queer and trans culture hates lesbians and women and is full of creepy straight people/people who are only “bisexual” until graduation who fetishize homosexuality in general and treat lesbianism as a phase.

I’m a lesbian and I don’t expect heterosexual women to be interested in me romantically and I’m certainly not interested in them. Lesbianism is a female-only experience, what these men want with their wives is pretendbianism. An inverted penis is not a vagina and a penis is not “female”. And even if these guys don’t get bottom surgery, many do get breast implants or facial feminization surgery and I wouldn’t expect straight women to be into that (and I’m not either).

In both queer and mainstream culture, women are expected to sacrifice everything for the sake of men, to throw everything into helping men to “be themselves”, and to believe that they are awful, terrible people if they dare think of putting their needs before men’s needs, or hell even voicing their needs. I am sadly not surprised that the movie “Normal” has that theme. I guess in some ways it is “normal”, in that it’s the same status quo, woman-hating garbage. The only difference is that it’s more of a mind-screw and the reason for putting the man first is because his female feels give him the “most oppressed” award. (Also, FTTs are generally hated by the larger trans community and the MTT’s handmaidens hate them too and believe they have “masculine privilege”.)

That’s a good point about finances. Becoming a single mother is financially devastating and sadly older women aren’t valued as much in society, so it’s much harder for a middle-aged woman to go and “find someone new”. Of course, supporting a MTT can sometimes be financially difficult. Sometimes the wife/female partner ends up spending way more money on beauty products and “womanly” clothes and accessories for her husband than she would ever buy for herself, and oftentimes the wives or mothers of these men end up helping to pay for hormones and surgery. Then there’s the unpaid labor of the endless hours these men expect their wives and other women they know to spend teaching them how to apply makeup and “be a woman”. Sometimes these men associate learned helpless with women and so their wife, ie the actual woman in the relationship, ends up doing all the chores that the husband previously did.

Thank you SO much for showcasing this excellent comment from your last post. I really wanted to be able to link to and refer to this for the upcoming OLOC conference and to pass on to friends and other Lesbians who are completely sympathetic to and promoting these men. If they don’t care about us, they might have more caring for the het women so badly affected by these men, as well as believe these women more than they do us.

When a men pretending to be a Lesbian or woman hurts Lesbians directly, most Lesbians just think of it as a “personal” issue. If a het woman is hurt or affected by these female-hating men, it becomes “political.”

To the woman who sent me the lovely message asking me about helping her set up a support system for women survivors of autogynephilic abuse: you asked me to redact your name but your avatar and email address is linked to your real life identity, so I can’t post your comment, even in redacted form. I will instead excerpt it here:

“If you publish thid, please redact my name. I am trying to reach out to other women affected by men who think they are women with a view of doing a group blog.

Gender Trender is the blog that saved me from madness and started me on the path to freedom. Thank you for that.

Is there any way you can pass on my email to other women who can tell their stories. Even if a blog is not something they want to participate in, perhaps we can give each other support? I went ten years with nobody to share this with. I’m nervous even now sharing it. I fear that women might think I was a sex traitor, when the reality of it is that I never once thought of him as a woman and I was trapped in an abusive relationship, held there by the demands of libfem, pomo, queer culture that insisted that HE was the moasted of moast oppressed and that I was a terrible human being for being revolted by him. I tried to get help, but no-one would listen. I almost lost my mind and thought about taking myself off the bridge many, many times. So it is with a hollow laugh I read these men and their handmaidens bleat on (I.e. threaten) about trans suicide when someone doesn’t play along with their fantasy. How many of their female partners are out there suffering, dying slowly, unrecognised as victims?

I know you are busy, but if there is any way you can help put women like us together I would be truly, truly grateful. I can be contacted at [redacted].

In the years since I first found your blog, and discovered that actual feminism still exists (im 52, I’m the pre- postmodern, poststructuralist, libfem, queer generation) I have deepened my commitment to women, pretty much excluded all males from my life and committed to radical feminism. Maybe I won’t ever be good enough to be accepted as a sister by some, but I dedicate the rest of my life to women and girls – at any cost. In particular, to exposing the harms done to females by men under the guise of the trans cult.”

i would be really interested in getting in touch with this person and help set up a support group or blog for survivors of autogynephilic abuse. we desperately need a safe place where we can speak openly amongst ourselves. i know of other women who would be interested too. im happy for you to pass on my email if thats possible.
gendertrender helped me salvage what was left of my sanity.i cant thank you enough.

I also want to thank you for this site Gallus and for the others like it.
When I read the words of the women here, they articulate what I always felt but could never find the words for.

I found my voice here and I have raised it.

And that movie Normal…
Insinuating that all this is normal.
She stayed because he threatened suicide.
And she had her own transition to make accepting menopause.
And what really pissed me off, was they had a young daughter just beginning to bloom and come into her own.
It should have been her time to transition into womanhood and not compete with him.
But instead it was all about his HRT therapy and his transition.

When I found out, for a while I struggled to accept it.
He had me join Crossdressers.com etc. and when I would express my resentment or the misogyny or the pain of betrayal, I was shut down, deleted, banned.
Incredibly, not just by the men but by the women as well.
I wish I could express how that made me feel.
My pain was nothing compared to their suffering.
They act like they are the only ones to have ever shed a tear.

I remember the exact moment everything changed.
It was a beautiful summer morning and we had just woke up.
There he was in his nighty and panties and he wanted to make love.
But he just laid there waiting…
He wanted to be “unveiled” like some 16 year old virgin (he was in his mid-fifties).
And there we were, in this silent sexual stand-off.
He wanted to reverse our roles and that went against my very nature and I just couldn’t.
And just like that…he threw our physical relationship away, like it was nothing.
All those years…all the love I had given him meant nothing.

No one ever talks about the wives and especially the children left in the wake of pain and the path of destruction these guys leave behind.
Shit, no one even considers it.

“I also want to thank you for this site Gallus and for the others like it.
When I read the words of the women here, they articulate what I always felt but could never find the words for.”
—
This 100%!
And while it’s heartbreaking and gut wrenching to read these stories of our sisters and what you have went through, it’s also uplifting to me that they/we have somewhere to post and express these things [Again, thank you Gallus!].
I think this now gives the chance of the voiceless to be heard and the suffocating to breath.
I think this is what’s so powerful of sharing one’s experience: because it represents so many, and through that expression, many can now relate and even heal from it. It can even give us a sense of peace to know we’re not alone, and no, we’re not crazy.
And I swear, there is nothing more empowering or powerful than that.

Yes, so much. A few years ago I hunted around for a support website for such women, hoping my MIL could find a place to truly talk to others about her feelings, but I only found one: a support site for spouses of people who came out gay/transgender. Even there you could see women censoring themselves or being very careful with their words for fear of being yelled at or insulted. No one speaks for these women or offers them not just understanding but AGREEMENT. Yes, a wrong has been done to you. Yes, you are right, and have a right, to be furious, upset, disgusted–not just hurt or scared (acceptable female emotions, y’see), but angry and outraged. It’s like it becomes a competition, which woman can be the most “womanly” (according to the societal stereotype) by supporting her wo/man the most. Like Mommy wars only with grown men and their game of pretend.

No one talks about the children–the young boys and men who wonder if this will happen to them or if their fathers ever really loved them and/or taught them the right things about being men and what they should look for in women or what women should be or look like; the young girls and women who wonder if their experiences as young women are false or what they should expect from the men in their lives or what it means to be in a relationship with a man or what it means to be a woman and how women should or do present themselves. Mommy is a jeans-and-t-shirt woman, but now Daddy is a woman and is constantly wearing a thick mask of make-up and walking around in heels and spangly dresses and elaborate hairdos; so how “should” women look, and is it just window-dressing? Not to mention what it must teach them about sex and physical desire in general.

I agree that part of Normal was infuriating (well, it all was). The teenage girl is trying to find her way to womanhood and suddenly must take a backseat to daddy playing with eyeshadow. The film presents this as just the way things are; it pretends to be sympathetic, sort of, but it also presents both of the kids as kind of bratty and selfish, expecting their parents to take care of them and put their own needs aside for them.

Your story about that summer morning just horrified me. My god, the selfishness. He tried to force you to “be the man,”to worship him like a pretty little princess and treat him like a teenage girl (which would disturb most women IMO) and you were supposed to be okay with that. Were you supposed to tell him how pretty he was, too? That was supposed to turn you on? And when you wouldn’t play his game he was done, proving it was all about him. He didn’t want to make love, he wanted to be serviced by you, wanted to force you to play his sick role-playing game, and you deserve more than that. (Note: again, nothing wrong with role-playing, but both people have to agree and be comfortable with it, ffs.) I just cannot imagine how you must have felt, and I am so sorry.

I doesn’t matter what wifes/children other family members think. They only serve to validate mens “inner feelings” aka their woman fetish. These women should be educated on how to deal with complete narcisstic fucks and how to get away from them.

Threatening suicide is a common tactic among male abusers, so I guess it’s “normal” that that happened in the film and it’s “normal” that the man being trans means he gets a free pass on it. (There’s also a weird trend in some liberal circles of declaring everything to be “ableist” –including the word “stupid” and acting like mentally ill or disabled people can do no wrong.)

Also, thank you for sharing your story. I’m glad at least this website will offer understanding and agreement for women who have been betrayed by these men.

Oh, LadySeconal, I’m sorry! I was referring to that specific delusion, but I can absolutely see where simply using “delusional” could be offensive to someone with a different mental imbalance which also causes delusions (eep, I hope I worded that correctly). Thank you for understanding that I meant no offense.

Would using “sex/gender-delusional” be better? Or is there a different term or phrase that is preferred? This isn’t a topic I discuss often–I tend to stay on the goofy light-hearted side of the internet–so I’m not always certain of the best way to express certain concepts.

Being delusional is not a good thing. It needs no qualifier. How fucking ridiculous. If anyone wants to argue otherwise, please do so in another place on another blog. No further comments parsing the “ableism” (or whatever the fuck) of the word delusional will be published on this blog. This comment represents the end of this absurd discussion. Delusional=Bad. Thank you.

Yes, it is sick and twisted see this:
“I’m not going to admit I killed anybody, I didn’t. Donna (AKA Douglas Perry) has killed nobody,” she told police. When pressed if “Doug did” the killings, Perry replied, “I don’t know if Doug did or not, it was 20 years ago and I have no idea whether he did or did not,” according to the affidavit.

In 1998, Perry served 18 months in an Oregon prison. The affidavit says that when Washington detectives interviewed a cell mate, she told them that Perry allegedly confessed to killing nine prostitutes “because she couldn’t breed and the women had the ability to have children and they were wasting it being ‘pond scum.'”

He can remember “always feeling like a woman inside” but he can’t remember murdering prostitutes. And “becoming a woman” means his true self, the person he’s been all along, the poor ladyperson trapped inside his male body peeking out at the world in misery and discomfort, can finally be visible to everyone else, but the “person he’s been all along” apparently didn’t exist before, too, and has no memories of being “trapped inside” that body. FFS.

I can’t imagine why this isn’t talked about more. Okay, so I’m being snarky. But as a woman about to turn 50 married to a man of the same age, when I read that line about him in his nightie I literally got sick to my stomach. I mean, what kind of narcissistic personality disorder/midlife crisis is this shit, that would cause a 50+ yo man to start dressing, not like a woman, like a GIRL and expect his wife to still have relations with him? And is it just me, or is anyone getting a distinct pedophile vibe about the way that these men don’t want to be women, they want to be young girls? I guess this all hits so much closer to home because of my age, but the devastation of it all. I’d love to hear more about the impact on the wives and children.

Yea, I think I’ve read either here or probably at Twanzphobic that it’s an age regression thing. I even think someone pointed out how many men feel like they have to first become a little girl and then grow up into a woman [many don’t, as we can see…].

Now, if we were living in a sane world, doctors would be on high alert and not be giving out surgery and pills to grown men like candy who claim they feel like little girls…

I get the pedophile vibe from a lot of these men too. Autogynophiles almost never want to be a realistic adult woman. They usually either want to be a pornified woman or worse a pornified little girl. It’s like that “adult baby” guy from “My Strange Addiction”. I heard he now does porn/fetish videos. It’s his fucked up idea of what he thinks being a little girl is like.

Oh geez, I thought I’d read all the posts on this blog, but somehow I missed that one. Just plain bizarre, and creepy. But the strange thing is, they make no effort to hide it, indeed they put it out there for everyone to see. I guess like me, most people are simply not paying attention.

Pedophilia is a factor with, I guess, >75% of them. Among all the heterosexuals and some number of bi/homosexuals, the fetish is about aping their erotic objects. So it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that a man dressed in a school girl uniform or a frilly pink dress and lacy pinafore eroticizes little girls.

While the vast majority deny it, quite a lot of them do keep as a secret secret that they like to dress exactly this way.

some theorise that paraphilic infantilism is a form of autoeroticism like autogynephilia..and that it shouldn’t be confused with pedophilia.. but if the number of women who have been violated in some way by autogynephilic men are anything to go by it is still very disturbing that these males have internally and grotesquely eroticised childhood and powerlessness…. interestingly, a significant proportion of ‘adult baby’ fetishists are also cross dressers and transgenderists – if the number of revolting ‘sissy-baby’ sites and forums are anything to go by.

One of the things that always gets me about my FIL, too, and the other stories like his, is the way he was able to bypass the full round of psychological testing. I’ve seen elsewhere–I think it was Walt Heyer’s site, which has some very good info even though it is heavily Christian-oriented in tone–about how there’s evidence to suggest that many of these men outright lie to their psychiatrists, who tend not to question them or look for deeper issues. (And of course the men don’t think about the consequences because they’re too busy thinking about hoe awesome it will be to live their sexual fetishes full-time and force others to participate.) One of the trans documentaries I watched featured a young man who’d gone to Thailand for his surgery. He became hysterical when the doctor tried to examine his penis; I mean, outright hysterical. To me his demeanor–not just that but several other red flags–seriously suggested a background of sexual abuse, but the idea wasn’t even mentioned and he’d never been questioned about it. That seemed shockingly irresponsible to me. His doctors even talked about what a “true transgender” he was because of his disgust and distress at his own body, without even considering that many people who’ve suffered sexual abuse have those same feelings. They mutilated this young man rather than give him actual therapy, and that’s something everyone should be disturbed by, even people who believe in the “born in the wrong body” nonsense.

These people commit suicide in record numbers not because they’re discriminated against–if that were the case the suicide rates among POC would be just as high if not higher–but because transition did not solve their underlying problem, and sooner or later they realize that they’re still the same person and their mental illness is still untreated. Like I said, that’s what happens when you turn your sexual fetish into full-time performance art, and the medical community encourages and endorses it. And then, of course, you expect the rest of the world to do the same and become infuriated when they won’t, so you threaten them with violence and scream and have fits because your male entitlement tells you you deserve to have women go along with everything you want.

Maybe that’s why the NHS seems to have abandoned any pretense of requiring a gender dysphoria diagnosis for treatment. The patients have learned how to fake it, so why even bother going through the motions? And it stands to reason that many more men in the UK are transitioning than women. Let’s say there is a genuine disorder that is set in place at some point in utero. Why are twenty times as many men afflicted with this disorder than women? When you consider Blanchard’s research that posits that 80 percent of male transitioners are actually fetishists (if I remember correctly), you get your answer.

A social worker I knew pressured me to be accepting of men who wanted to pretend to be women. There’s a certain mentality that seems unable to see more deeply into human dysfunction; they think the solution to people’s alienation from their own bodies and minds is for the rest of us to accept whatever delusions these people experience. This mentality is rooted in a distaste for actually confronting people’s sickness; it is so much easier to say that relatively normal people — i.e., women — should be accepting and supportive of abnormal people’s — i.e., men — psychoses.

That’s a big reason why I reached my own peak trans moment. This idea that if you don’t go along with a man’s supposed woman-ness no matter the circumstances, you! are! a! bigot! Even if you grant that there’s a legitimate disorder that makes people feel they were born in the wrong body, and the only way to treat this is to let them transition, I still feel that getting to the point that you’re regarded the way you want to be ought to be earned, not granted because you say so. Giving the unequivocal title “woman” to an individual who appears male in every possible aspect, including even male-pattern violence, I feel is just really insulting to women.

Fundamentally, this is the problem that I have with mainstream trans ideology. More specific issues, such as the cotton ceiling and fighting for convicted sex offenders to have access to women’s spaces, really just flow from this.

That case you mentioned from Thailand does sound very irresponsible and you’re right that people with a history of sexual abuse often behave that way. I knew someone who would behave like that and she didn’t even really like physical contact with other people period.

Thailand does have quite an industry for sex-reassignment surgery as well as other plastic surgery. Medical tourism is quite common and people who can’t afford surgery in their countries but can afford a trip to Thailand often just go there. If those doctors had asked the young man if he had a history of sexual abuse and suggest that maybe that’s why he wants to be female, it would cut into their profits.

I do think profits are a big driving force for this, along with well-meaning but ignorant medical professionals who have bought into the transgender ideology. There are also some who might be afraid to publicly oppose the practice because they don’t want to be part of a smear campaign. Or they don’t want their hard drive to get hacked and pictures of their children with pornographic captions on them posted on the internet. Yes, Andrea James, a board member of the group “Trans Youth Family Alliance” did that to Micheal Bailey’s children. Bailey is a sexologist who wrote a paper about autogynophilia. Oh, and a specialist at Dr. Norman Spack’s clinic was charged with possessing a large amount of child pornography in 2012 so you really got to question the motivations of those who support transgendering children (hint: it’s pedophiles and autogynophiles who want to use kids to legitimize their fetish, as well as parents with Munchausen’s by proxy.)

I also agree with you about the suicide rate. It’s not just discrimination, and the fact that so many of them try to commit suicide after transitioning seems to indicate that such a practice doesn’t fix underlying mental disorders. Even some of the more well adjusted post-op ones who had been living as the opposite sex for years (and who transitioned in their early 20s) had to go through cognitive behavioral therapy.

You know it’s funny, men like this are always praised for “being true to themselves.” That whole afterschool special thing about how it’s cool to be different. But when we do it and get harrassment, the response is always “You get cat called for having short hair and wearing flannel? Get a new haircut and wear a dress.” “Are you treated like dirt in your male dominated career that you worked hard to earn? Just a get a new job.” Same with cyberbullying- “just get off the Internet.” Women aren’t allowed to be “just ourselves.”

^THIS. Every time we get bullied someone will insinuate that it’s somehow our fault. I was reading an article about women who write young adult books. One of them, who I had never even heard of before had a tumblr account and people started sending her rape threats in order to trigger her panic attacks because she had been raped before. Other people basically told her that she should leave tumblr, that it was her fault for bringing it up. I mean, how dare this women try to tell other women and men who have been sexually abused that they were not alone.

Ugh, all I will say is you are right. Even my mom told me to just get off the internet when I started bumping into the psychotic pretenbians who hate real lesbians. I’ve been gradually trying to convince her of how harmful queer and trans ideology is and how unfortunately it’s not just confined to a few crazies on tumblr. She is less supportive of it now that I’ve told her about the children being medically experimented on, but I’ll ask her to read “Gender Hurts”.

I know other people have mentioned similar sentiments here, but there’s just no way that anyone, even on the Left, would take women seriously if we demanded they cater to our special snowflake feelings and never say anything mean around us because it’s “triggering”. In fact, most of the backlash about triggers seems to be directed at women, not transpeople.

I feel like there’s this elephant in the room where supposed trans allies, as much as they don’t want to admit it, do regard transwomen are men. What else explains why they coddle transwomen to such an absurd degree? In this culture, men get coddled and ego stroked, NOT women.

I agree. I think that for all the politically correct lip service, deep down people know that trans “women” are male. That’s why they get a lot of focus and why there’s a creepy, almost fetish-like mentality on tumblr about trans women being perfect and how they can do no wrong. Just think about it. There is no other mix-sex political movement where the women get paid attention to the most, including social justice movements. Some third-wavers have brainwashed themselves on the surface to believe that trans men are high octane evil because of their “male privilege” (which they had since forever in spite of being female and going through girlhood– and I’ve even seen some idiot third-wavers who think FTTs have more male privilege than actual males.) However, if you know someone’s birth sex, you will always be biased to them in a certain way, no matter how often you keep telling yourself that femaleness can be a feeling in a man’s head or the other way around. And if MTTs were really exactly the same as women, then why focus on them so much? And if MTTs are women, then how can women oppress them on the axis of sex or gender?

The only logical answer is that deep down everyone knows they are male and male feelings get catered to.

When I hear this nonsense, I immediately point out that feelings are not facts! I don't "feel" like a woman; I AM a woman and it has zippo to do with my feelings, and everything to do with the biological facts and the experiences I've had growing up female from Day One to my current age of 56.

I fully understand and support your MIL in divorcing him. If she stayed, she wouldn't actually be in a lesbian relationship, because he's not really a woman, but it wouldn't be the marriage they had before either, considering that his appearance would be mimicking that of a woman 24/7 — a full time female impersonator. If she'd wanted a lesbian relationship, she would have found a real woman to get married to.

I was very glad to find this place, too, tired of my PC mainstream feminist and liberal friends who have bought the idea that they have to support this nonsense or be labeled a "transphobic hater".

I embrace it, too. Damned right I’m phobic about these people. Who the hell wouldn’t be terrified of grown azz men, many with military backgrounds, criminal records and a fetishistic need to be validated as women PLUS a pathological hatred of women all up in our private spaces. Factor in the fact that typically when I’m in a public toilet or locker room I have my toddler with me and goddamned right I’m phobic. Anyone who isn’t is either uninformed or chloroformed. In general I can be quite PC. I figure if it has nothing to do with me or mine it’s none of my business, but that’s not the case here. These people are dangerous. Frankly I’m furious that it’s bad enough that I can’t send my older son into a public toilet alone because of the freaky violent shit men perpetrate in there, now the women’s toilet isn’t safe either? Fuck that. I don’t give two good goddamns about them and their feelings. Take that crap elsewhere.

You know, I don’t have anything against these people pretending to be the other sex in private and on their own time — whatever floats their boat.

It’s when they demand the government legally recognize their delusion by having their sex officially changed in legal matters. I wonder if this legal fiction turns their previous straight marriages into same-sex marriages – does that nullify the marriage in some states or what?, And vice versa? Having this legal fiction officially recognized also gives them access to opposite sex restrooms and prisons as well, which is a violation of the rights of those in such places who are genuine members of that sex.

A few years ago, I read of a convicted rapist in a British prison who decided he was a woman while in prison and pressed to be transferred to a woman’s prison — while still possessing the “tools” to rape again. What dangerous, errant nonsense. What about the rights of the real women in that prison to be safe from rape?

If governments want to recognize these people, then they need to classify them as “T” or “MT” and “FT”, to distinguish them from genuine members of both sexes. And build them their own public restrooms and prisons.

Personally, I think they should give up this nonsense and learn to accept reality and live with the sex they really are and play the hand that biology dealt them.

That’s true. You can be supportive as hell, think that the government should pay for SRS, and write articles about the hardships of minority transgender prostitutes, and you will still be attacked and sent rape and death threats for writing an article 30 years ago about how a lesbian group shouldn’t allow a wife-beating male transgender on their board. (All while using preferred pronouns.) Here’s the link: https://gendertrender.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/victoria-brownworth-letter-to-the-lat/

Heterosexual males who are transgender may make up a minority of the overall population and a minority of the LGBT alphabet soap population, but they have a lot of influence and a lot of handmaidens. The people who are leading this movement aren’t like the transgenders I went to college with, who didn’t seem to be stuck in narcissistic rage mode and were likable people. Also, none of them fit the late-transitioning autogynophile narrative since everyone who was transitioning was in their late teens/early twenties and almost everyone was homo-or-bisexual. I no longer think trying to change your sex is a good way to deal with psychological issues but there’s a huge difference between the way most of the trans people behaved when in was in school and the way these ex-military, heterosexual males with a sexual fetish and a pathological hatred for women are behaving.

That is not sex or gender dysphoria, that is a perverted man who should have been arrested for indecent exposure at the least. I suppose the one positive side to living in a red state is that shit is less likely to fly here. Not that conservatives aren’t woman-hating, often to an extreme degree, but at least I won’t be demanded to ignore my instincts and pretend that a male in a woman’s locker room isn’t a threat because of gender-feels.

And on that note, because this comment has gotten long, I will just say that your safety and my safety is always more important than hurt feelings. If a someone, especially a man is giving of the creep vibe, get away.

I’m in the same place as you. I don’t understand why a third (or fourth or fifth) option of accommodation isn’t on the table for transpeople. It really comes down to putting women at risk to validate identity, NOT to keep transpeople safe from harm. If the bathroom/locker room/shelter/prison issue went away tomorrow, I would go back to barely caring about the conduct of transpeople in their private lives. At that point creepy ideas like the cotton ceiling would evoke more of a point and laugh response.

So typically hollywood. All patting themselves on the back about how enlightened they think they are and as Gallus pointed out his acting is shit. He has taken away a nom from a woman. Stupid prick will probably win and get up there looking like a man in a dress acting all verklempt.

Whom ever is hosting the emmy’s I hope they make fun him. “So Larry do your balls itch in that dress??” Love to see his big yap fall open. Ten bucks says Cocks would cry if anyone pointed out that he is a man.

Plus, they are far more willing to play exactly into the male fantasy. Yes, lots of actresses have cosmetic surgery etc., but few are willing to go to the extremes the M2Ts are, or to talk–like Janice Mock (I know he’s not an actress but still)–about how liberating and awesome it is to be a child prostitute, or how they love to be catcalled and objectified and how if a day goes by that they’re not crudely propositioned it’s a wasted day. They’re happy to spend all of their time prattling on about make-up and dresses and shoes like empty-headed little girls–no serious subjects allowed!

M2Ts never want to talk about women’s issues or how they are more than just a body, because they’re not women and don’t understand women’s issues (even if they gave a fuck about them, which they don’t), and they are absolutely nothing more than their surgically altered bodies; those bodies are their entire identities, and since they are men they repeat back everything men want to believe about women and women’s sexuality or thinking. They are every man’s fantasy of a woman who fucks “like a man” and is happy to be objectified and degraded in life and on film. And the best part is, they’re men so they can still be respected for doing so, unlike women who must be insulted and shamed.

@Gallus Mag OMFG. OMFG. I can’t even…it would take me hours to outline all the bullshit in that badly-written piece of shit. (And it is really awful writing.) (Oops, it turns out I did in fact outline a bunch of the bullshit in it; sorry for the length.) Of course it made the columnist cry; it’s the trans fantasy presented as love story: men can’t tell the difference at all and won’t care about being lied to and denied biological children.

But yes, clearly men make much better women than women do. Not only are they always around doing laundry in sexy lingerie despite having thriving careers in feminine industries, but grown-ass men literally cannot tell that the breasts they’re fondling are fake and the vagina they’re putting their penises into is an artificial tube made of penis skin with no natural lubrication that doesn’t smell like a woman’s vagina or have the muscle tone of a woman’s vagina or the inner folds and rivulets of a woman’s vagina. Those same men either have never seen a vulva or don’t perform oral sex (notice how that wasn’t even mentioned) so would have no way of noticing the nonexistence or odd appearance/shape of the labia and/or clitoris.

Bonus points for “I experience pleasure just like a woman does,” as if “Roberta” has any way of knowing how real women experience pleasure and what it actually feels like for us to have a penis in our vagina.

Extra bonus points for a woman writer who apparently doesn’t realize how vaginas work or where the nerves in them are.

Even more bonus Unintentional Hilarity points for the unspoken admission that “Donald”‘s penis is so small he doesn’t notice that “Roberta”‘s vagina is only knuckle-deep.

Superduper extra more points for repeatedly mentioning their raging, oh-so-hot sex life which still requires the aid of lubricants every time and “Donald” doesn’t find that strange at all. Methinks “Donald” has way more experience fucking trannies than he realizes, especially when you add in…

…even MORE superduper extra special bonus points that Donald has never once noticed that Roberta does not menstruate, even though he wants children and is wondering why they haven’t arrived. I suppose Roberta lies and fakes it every month, but of course we can’t mention it because that shows the true depth of his deception–which the “author” of this piece refuses to acknowledge–and that he is apparently digging used tampons out of the bins in ladies’ rooms and taking them home to plant in the trash. Because I promise my husband, and pretty much any man, would notice if I kept claiming I had my period and yet no tampons were being bought or used or placed in the bathroom trash can. One or two months, sure, I could maybe get away with it, but for over a year? Not to mention that menstruation isn’t a switch that goes on and off, as I’m sure you all know; there’s usually a day or two where the scent is slightly different and the, um, color of the vaginal fluid is slightly affected. Sorry if that seemed too graphic? Point is, it’s very hard to believe a man who isn’t a virgin with women wouldn’t notice any of this.

And “Donald” is a DETECTIVE!! I can only guess he was given that rank as an act of charity for the intellectually disabled, and the real detectives nod and smile kindly and assure him that of course he’s a real detective as he mops the floor “looking for clues.”

The female writer of this piece (I love how the columnist is so careful to mention that she’s biologically female; yay approbation!) is being deliberately deceitful to aid her agenda; she’s taking the tack genre romance writers do (and I write a related genre; that’s not a criticism) of glossing over things like sticky spots on sheets and morning breath to present a rosy picture of sexuality and sexual intercourse between men and women. That’s fine when our goal is to arouse and delight our readers with sexual fantasy, and **those readers are aware of the deception**. It is NOT okay when we’re writing propaganda which pretends to educate, and the readers/viewers are not implicitly aware of the deception and are encouraged to take those lies as truths; it is NOT okay when we hide those details to fool people or to placate men who really, really want to believe other men couldn’t tell the difference between themselves and real biological women. The woman who wrote this “play” knows damn well that men are aware of fake breasts and that if nothing else they can feel the difference between a real vagina and a smooth, dry, colon-like sheath when they insert their penises into it. She knows damn well that said smooth dry sheath cannot possibly lubricate, smell, taste, or feel like a real vagina. She knows damn well that men do not menstruate and that there is no possible way a man could not be aware or notice that his girlfriend or wife isn’t doing so, and that there is no way a man could fake menstruation and then claim he “never thought of himself as anything but female” despite engaging in calculated falsehood to hide his true sex on a monthly basis. She knows damn well that to know beyond doubt that you are incapable of ever becoming pregnant or bearing children, and then to marry a man and allow him to excitedly wait for your pregnancy because he’s eager to become a father, is fucking scummy and there is nothing in the world that can justify such selfishness. (And again…he’s waiting for her to become pregnant but doesn’t know about periods and Roberta’s NOT deliberately faking them?) The author knows all of that.

But that doesn’t suit her agenda. So she just pretends vaginas don’t lubricate and that they terminate in dead ends after a couple of inches, clitorises don’t exist, female genitalia doesn’t look, smell, or taste like female genitalia, periods are some big secret men are unaware of, and men’s penises have no real sensitivity to pressure or texture so every tube they stick it in feels the same. She pretends male castratos with artificial breasts are absolutely no different physically from biological women and no one can tell the difference. She pretends it’s no big deal to outright lie to a man about his prospects of having biological children with his wife–something which I think people of all ideologies and beliefs can agree is something every person, male or female, has a right to know the truth about before marriage if that truth is known to the other person.

She pretends all of those things, and then wants everyone to believe that it’s reality. Real writing is about truth, not lies, and this “playwright” is not a writer; she’s a propagandist who uses her pen to suck tranny dicks.

@Dorothy Mantooth- Your first post is just sooo spot on!❤
Say all of that!

@GallusMag-…Why? Just how…Like how do you even go about finding this kind of stuff which burns the eyes? Seriously, what did you even type in to find this? LOL

@Dorothy Mantooth- Your analysis of the play was so interesting I had to burn my eyes and check it out myself! When you said: " Not to mention that menstruation isn’t a switch that goes on and off, as I’m sure you all know; there’s usually a day or two where the scent is slightly different and the, um, color of the vaginal fluid is slightly affected. Sorry if that seemed too graphic?"
—
No! No, please do speak of such! I love reading about the female gaze, I love reading what other women notice! And I love everything you posted and pointed out regarding the "play"!
I think it's the silence of our observation [no matter how graphic] that allows for the male gaze to take over and persist as our own. Speaking of male gaze, it becomes obvious the author of this "play" is suffering from male gaze as she keeps describing Robert[a] in a sexual manner:

1. "ROBERTA AYNSLEY TOWNSEND: beautiful, medium height woman, late twenties, sexy, works as a fashion consultant. She is intelligent, loving and sensitive. She has been happily married to Donald for the last nine months.”

2. “When Roberta enters, she is wearing a silky long robe over a black lace teddy. She is sexy and has long wavy brown hair.”
—
Donald even seems confused as to why Robert[a] wears da sexxxayness around the house:

“DONALD: (he looks at her strangely) Why do you dress like that to do the housework?

ROBERTA: What? I don’t know. I guess I like to dress pretty for you. Why? Don’t you like it? Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?” [<—Da flocka?]
—-
There is no focus on sexualizing Donald, because, pppfffttt! why? Men don't want to be turned on by another man! Men want to be turned on by a woman! And that's exactly what the author does, she writes as if she's writing for het men:

"DONALD: I know you love me. These last nine months being married to you have been a dream come true for me."
—
And this right here confirms that men who are married to MTF will have a great marriage! Truly, men DO make for better women!
And this dialogue! Here, have some more:
"DONALD: … Your lips are so luscious, so inviting…. so soft. (pauses sadly)

ROBERTA: (smiling) I love when you say those things to me. But why are you saying them as though it’s a tragedy? What’s changed? (she searches his face for an answer) Honey, what is it? Are you bored with the way I look? (thinking) Is it my hair? (she gestures putting her hair on top of her head) Would you like me to wear it up like I used to? I know how much you liked that style. I don’t mind. Really. (thinking) Maybe I could change the colour for you. (nervously playing with her hair) Would you like your wife to be a blonde? (he shakes his head without looking at her) I know….it’s my makeup isn’t it? It’s too much. I can tone it down for you. (flustered) Honey, I’ll do anything to please you. You know that.

DONALD: Don’t let the feminists hear you say that.

ROBERTA: To hell with the feminists! They don’t know what they’re missing. There’s nothing I enjoy more than making you proud of me. Nothing! And I’m not ashamed to shout it to the world. (pretending she’s telling it to the world) I love my husband and I’ll do anything to make him happy. (more quietly) You’re my reason for living. Please don’t stop loving me, I couldn’t take it.
—
Mother of the goodness! Just no!…
MY EYES!!!! MY BRAIN!!
….
Okay, I need to stop because this crap goes on way too long. I see what you mean now that it would take hours to dismantle that poop. It would also have to be done on another blog, as trying to do it in one post would get too long. Not to mention that the blog post would have to be broken down into at least 2 parts…Ain’t nobody got time for that.

@Dorothy Mantooth-
“And “Donald” is a DETECTIVE!! I can only guess he was given that rank as an act of charity for the intellectually disabled, and the real detectives nod and smile kindly and assure him that of course he’s a real detective as he mops the floor “looking for clues.”

HAhahahahahahahahahahalolololololololmaO! Too fucking funny. Feminists should write parodies of this shit and then sell it back to trannies – use the money to fund anti-gender projects. LMAO

@Dorothy Mantooth that was a brilliant analysis, and far more interesting than reading that play. The part about lying about his ability to have biological children made me angry- with the author- and I’ve never particularly wanted children. This is the sort of repulsive human being the audience is supposed to sympathize with? And lying that his parents are dead? Seems like the melodrama can’t quite cover the flaws in this propaganda piece.

That play! OMG! ???
@DorothyMantooth I loved reading your analysis of how bizarre it comes across when these men, posturing as females, are written into daily life scenarios

The play was trying to normalize the situation, but it inadvertantly made the behavior involved in the deceipt even more strange because it. just. doesn’t. work.

Seeing as we’re talking about men and periods here, well..having periods is not the tiny side-note that trannies make it out to be. It’s quite an integral part of hetero relationships. What transwomen might not know is that most men aren’t bothered about having sex during a woman’s period. Sure, some are disgusted by it. But some insist on it. I’ve even sat listening once to a group of men talking in a pub about this exact subject: of having sex while their girlfriend is on her period. Some said it didn’t bother them; others said they preferred not to.

“The female writer of this piece (I love how the columnist is so careful to mention that she’s biologically female; yay approbation!)”

Yeah, No. Hate to burst anyone’s bubble, but our femulating brothers are not well known for their truth-telling. I’m gonna go right on ahead and follow my gut which says no woman on earth, living or dead, could have written this. My guess is that “Randi” is Jillian Page. Same stilted writing style as his last demented play:

What makes this all the more dishonest is that Page has written on his personal blog about the suffering he has undergone post-SRS, as his surgi-fuckhole has failed to heal and continues to weep and bleed with recurrent infections for over a year since he underwent the procedure.

@Cherryblossom, precisely. Most adult men who’ve lived with a woman is intimately familiar with the menstrual cycle. After all, and I hope this isn’t TMI, but accidents do happen. Sometimes there’s bloody underwear, bloody sheets or sometimes even blood on him! It’s kinda hard to miss. I’m with GM, no female, living or dead, wrote this nonsense.

I agree that no woman would have written this. This may sound trivial, but the reference to “medium height” – no woman would write, “beautiful, medium height etc” to describe a female character. Medium is a size – small, medium, large. Height is, short, average, tall. There are all different kinds of female characters in my writing, and I never mention their height.

You know, I feel like an idiot for not commenting on how strange it seemed that a woman would write this, because not only had I honestly not planned to write a full criticism/analyses (so ended up going on a rant that went long, ha, focusing on the sex issues specifically) but I can sometimes get kind of a bee in my bonnet over the idea of “writes like a woman/writes like a man.” And frankly, I’ve seen some writing from women that comes very close to the facile stupidity of this piece.

But yeah…it doesn’t ring very true, does it?

And I have to say, that bit about doing laundry in a negligee and “should I change my hair?” and “To hell with the feminists!” offends me not just as a woman, but as a housewife/stay-home mother, which I have been for over a dozen years (I started writing and selling a few years into that, but my chief occupation for quite a few years was simply “housewife/stay-home mom.”

This may not be a popular feeling here (I don’t know, I haven’t seen the topic come up) but I was and am very proud of that. I loved, and still do love, being both of those things. I feel valued and like I was/am part of an equal partnership. But I never did laundry in a negligee and I find the idea that a good housewife would do such a thing really offensive–so that’s what a real, true, good housewife does, really (I know “Roberta” has a career, but c’mon, that’s window dressing)? That’s all housewives or good wives do, is sit around in lingerie and feathered mules, eating bon-bons and occasionally tossing some clothes into the washing machine? When we become housewives we become idiots who, when our husbands seem bothered by something, immediately assume it’s because we’re not pretty enough for him and if we change our hair color that’ll fix the problem? That’s the kind of support a good wife or housewife offers her husband?

When something bothers me, my husband does not offer to grow a beard or color his gray, as if that will fix it. When something bothers him, my first instinct is not to change my hair. Because we’re grown-ups and have an actual adult relationship where we support each other mentally and emotionally. Hell, my grandmother wouldn’t have made such a suggestion if something was bothering my grandfather because it would have seemed ridiculous, and they were married in 1940 and she didn’t work a day in her life until he died fifteen years later and she was forced to.

And housewives/wives in general are perfectly capable of being feminists, even if we have chosen a “traditional” role in our homes, and even if we disagree about some particular tenets of feminism or whatever else.

As you guys have said here: it’s not just about “gender,” it’s about wanting to play-act some version of walk-all-over-me femininity that didn’t exist even a hundred years ago. It’s pretty sick that the fantasy of these people isn’t just to be a woman, but to be a woman that June Cleaver would tell to grow a damn backbone. When Barbie is more feminist than the character you’re writing, there’s a problem.

LOLOLOL!!!! Yes, there is no doubt this in another literary gem from the fluffy pink pen of Jillian Page! We are supposed to believe that a random “genetic female” named “Randi Cousineau” wrote this in 1988? LOLOL!! Now I have to read this because it sounds amazing- Donald the hapless gender detective! The majority of adults (and children) can identity a transgender male accurately before they even open their mouths, at least 99.9% of the time. This sounds like a romping good fantasy!

GM- Did you even put on that other one act in your hotel room at your last radfem conference?? I did/still do want to play Jessica😛

“my grandmother …and… my grandfather …were married in 1940 and she didn’t work a day in her life until he died fifteen years later and she was forced to.”
Please don’t forget that every woman “works” who does “housework” i.e., maintains a home, cooks, cleans, clothes and otherwise nurtures people. She is carrying out the most critical life-sustaining functions of any society. This work is the most important humanly and ecologically friendly labor undertaken, yet it is the most underappreciated and undervalued of all work- except perhaps the most fundamental labor of all: childbirth. Despite being the very foundation of every society, this work stands alone in being almost universally unremunerated. This is because it’s almost solely performed by women. Not that women can’t and don’t do lots of other demanding labor: from science to medicine to farming and construction. As a radical feminist for the last forty-five years I see the unremunerated character of “housework” as the cornerstone of women’s oppression. It’s unpaid status robs us of the resources we have earned and deserve, which could underwrite our freedom to acquire an education, travel, provide for our children and insure our independence from male domination. As has been said, “Every mother is a working mother.” While men proudly stockpile wealth from many destructive activities and occupations, we women are trivialized for our indispensable, socially beneficial labor. Decades ago I wrote a book on the subject (Houseworker’s Handbook) and unfortunately nothing has changed in this regard. Still, we can always consider “housework” the most valuable social labor which provides the very foundation of all societies without which none of us would survive.

Pure tokenism. Every woman on that show deserves a nomination before Cox. Even if Cox has acting chops, you wouldn’t know it because that role has the least range/relevance out of all the rest. At least Uzo Aduba also got a nod, but Lorraine Toussaint (among others) was robbed.

This was really interesting, thanks for adding more info in the comments.

When I was a kid in the mid-nineties, age 8 or 9, my mom’s best friend divorced her husband after she found out he was a crossdresser, possibly an m2t. Being so young I didn’t get the full story, but I was told enough. I believe she found some Polaroids of him in lingerie among his things and confronted him about it.

He was a trucker while she ran a small daycare center out of their house, so he was usually gone and she was stuck in the house all day. At this point in their marriage their three children were all out of the house or almost out, so they had been married for a while. Even before we knew, her husband made me uncomfortable but I couldn’t explain why. He gave off a creepy vibe, always smiling too much with bulgy eyes, and I didn’t like being around him. To find out that this is what he did while he was out on the road just compounded that feeling of uneasiness and I was relieved never to see him again. To me it felt too much like him parodying women to imagine him posing for pictures in his sexy lady costume. Because I knew that the point of sexy underwear was to perform for men, lingerie certainly did not seem comfortable enough for someone to just wear for no reason, so what was he doing? Performing for himself. He was a hideous 50yo man with long, scraggly blond hair (which I realized he kept for verisimilitude, even though it was fucking gross because he couldn’t really grow it) pretending to be a sexy young woman from a porno. It felt the same as when I saw male comedians in movies and on tv caricaturing us and getting laughs simply for being a man in a dress. The punchline was that they were degrading themselves by looking like women, because women were a joke. Anyway, they divorced, he kept their big split level house (and his superior paycheck) and she moved into a tiny little trailer. I remember it being hard on her, and it flipping her entire world over, how how betrayed and disgusted she felt. Of course financially she was ruined.

At the risk of blathering on, the man who abused me as a child (not sexually, just physically and psychologically) was also a crossdresser, or at least he had a female persona he’d use to threaten me and fuck with my five-year-old head. He’d make me have fucked-up conversations with “her” (unseen, with something covering my head) and then interrogate and punish me for “lying” as himself after she “left”. Once he actually showed up in full drag claiming to be her and I was not allowed to acknowledge the truth, which may not sound like much but was absolutely crazy-making. To this day it’s not so much the physical torture that I can’t get over but the way he completely tore apart my mind, tried to replace my own reality with his, tried to implant himself and his abuse in my brain. And still I cry a lot because it worked, I still hear him in there sometimes, and because of him I have never felt safe, not even after 20 years. Just hearing a man use the high-pitched “lady voice” gets my hair raising.
So you can imagine why crossdressers and m2ts, especially ones who do not pass in anyway, really disturb me when they try to dictate MY reality of being female, take away the only language I have to articulate my oppression at the hands of men, force themselves into my safe spaces, and then call me a bigot for not considering them women and potential dates (I’m a lesbian) when a man like them did this to me. All I want is to have nothing to do with them, that’s it. And you’d think that since I’m such a disgusting “cis” transphobe that they would be fine with me staying away but no, if you’re not paying attention to them and “validating” them at all times you are scum and need to be harassed into compliance.

Thanks for sharing your story and you have all my sympathy and so do the other women who have shared their stories. Thank you for speaking about this. I have started to think that the pathological need to force others to acknowledge you as female when you are clearly male is a form of psychological abuse. It just makes me angry that people think that it is okay.

I used to not have too big of a problem with men crossdressing, but since it’s so often coupled with fetishizism and pathologically hatred and abuse of women, I plan on being a lot more guarded around such people in the future.

The male entitlement shows through when they demand constant validation from us despite us being awful “cis” transphobes. They hate women like us for our views, but instead avoiding us, they demand we pay attention to them. I don’t demand that men who hate women and lesbians pay attention to me or validate me. In fact, I try to avoid them because they could hurt me. Despite all the claims of radical feminists or anyone else who isn’t 100% on board of the ideology literally murdering trans people, especially MTTs, with words MTTs know the the people who commit violence against them are almost always men. That’s why they target women, especially lesbians with their demands for validation because that shit would not fly with most other men.

“I have started to think that the pathological need to force others to acknowledge you as female when you are clearly male is a form of psychological abuse.”

Yes, it is abuse. Men who psychologically/emotionally abuse women are seldom called batterers, but that’s exactly what they are. With certain personality disorders (like Narcissistic PD–so nicely illustrated above!), it’s not isolated incidents of abuse, but a constant and consistent pattern. It’s who they ARE. And, with these guys who start feeling all girly in middle age, it’s still who they are before, during, and after “transition.”

“…Who the hell wouldn’t be terrified of grown azz men, many with military backgrounds, criminal records and a fetishistic need to be validated as women PLUS a pathological hatred of women all up in our private spaces. Factor in the fact that typically when I’m in a public toilet or locker room I have my toddler with me and goddamned right I’m phobic.
Anyone who isn’t is either uninformed or chloroformed….” rosalynholcombe

rosalyn–I’m asking your permission to use the last line of your quote there whenever this issue comes up–That is just beyond words GREAT!!

@roslynholcomb It seems that one of the reasons transwomen get away with so much of their crap is because women are silent about many aspects of their lives. We don’t talk about blood on sheets. Or blood in sex．After all why would we?! So there is a particular kind of cringeworthy ignorance that can be attributed to these men. But this is assuming they even believe themselves to be women. They lie so much how do we even know this part of their narrative is even true? Perhaps they’re just seeing how far they can go, and how many boundaries they can pushy. After seeing how they operate online I’m convinced they enjoy flexing their power over women and seeing our reactions: confusion, fear and disbelief!

Good point CBL, we’ve been taught that so much about our bodies is disgusting that we try to hide it in shame. I remember after my first miscarriage I was bleeding heavily after I came home from the hospital and needed pads. I was horrified at the notion of asking my husband(!) to pick them up for me. Of course, he thought nothing of it, aside for the ridiculous number of choices, but I actually considered calling a girlfriend instead. That was many years, and a lot of pregnancies and miscarriages ago. I no longer have those hangups, especially since he is intimately acquainted with the function (snd malfunction) of my reproductive system.

I think that’s one of the most malignant aspects of this entire trans cult. The notion that we should put “trigger” warnings on basic female bodily functions less we “trigger” trans. WTF!? Do they lose consciousness every time a Tampax commercial comes on? Of course not, it’s just another male silencing technique to keep us ashamed of the wonder that is the female body. So that we are complicit in the notion of ourselves as nothing but fuck holes. This goes along with the whole shaming behind public breastfeeding. Think about how amazing it is that the female body can not only gestate the young, but feed and nurture it as well without any intervention from anyone else. We are literally life itself, and the menstrual cycle is an unmistakable sign of this. As I age and come to the end of my fertility I have grown more appreciative of this fact.

In a man that would be considered a superpower! But in women it’s merely a secondary side effect of our “real role” as semen receptacles. (I realize that not all females can, or want to bear young, but the fact that most of us can, is, for me, an unceasing marvel, but I don’t mean to be disrespectful.)

If you’re not taught to look at your body that way it’s easy to convince you that you are merely a means of pleasure for someone else. And I think this is one more aspect of the way trans lines up in lockstep with MRA/PUA.

“Think about how amazing it is that the female body can not only gestate the young, but feed and nurture it as well without any intervention from anyone else. We are literally life itself, and the menstrual cycle is an unmistakable sign of this. ”

I completely agree with this.

In this topsy turvy world designed by men the female body has been devalued so that now it is seen somehow less important than men’s bodies. Not only less important, but in many cases disgusting. Or even less than that– The rot has spread so much that it is often only perceived as being an object, with a hole.

But interestingly, through the trans narrative, you can sense the innate impotence and inadequacy of the male body.

They envy female bodies and are bitter that they were born male instead of female. That part is true.

Back in the day women didn’t speak about their bodies because it was shameful and unladylike and that is still the case in many communities. Now in some “progressive” circles women can’t speak the truth about their bodies because some men with narcissistic personality disorder and a pathological hatred of women might be jealous. What really annoys me is that most of the backlash against “trigger” warnings seems to be directed at women who don’t want to see porn and people with PTSD. It’s not directed at the trans males who created the climate where pointing out that only females can get pregnant means you need a “tw cissexism” tag. Granted, handmaidens are to blame for this too. While the trans trend is growing, by themselves these men don’t have a large enough presence to be the thought police so these men create the rhetoric that “cis” women oppress them and that a good “cis” woman ally mindless does what she’s told (and is okay with verbal abuse and threats if she messes up) but even some of the people who think that “cissexism” is a bs concept think that these dumb handmaidens came up with it.

” It seems that one of the reasons transwomen get away with so much of their crap is because women are silent about many aspects of their lives. We don’t talk about blood on sheets. Or blood in sex.”
—
!!!
Exactly! Through our silence he can rewrite what it means to be a woman; there is no menstrual cycle, the vulva is now called a vagina as it’s the only important part on a woman because it receives his penis, there is no such thing as a clitoris and we don’t need it, all women are born with Maybelline make-up plastered to our faces, we can only have an orgasm if it’s through the vagina, we just looooove penetration, all women wear high heels, women only get horny for sex if a man activates her, all women want men to take the lead, women can’t be leaders, etc.

And so, without a voice this also allows for him to place all the blame on us. Just recently I read a comment saying that it’s women/mothers who should teach men not to rape. This made me want to smash something. But it ties right back into men being allowed to have low expectations of themselves. Fathers don’t need to teach their sons not to rape, men don’t need to teach their male relatives and male friends that rape isn’t cool. Men don’t need to confront men about respecting women and taking responsibility. No, women should teach men this, even though it’s the men committing the foul act of rape.
What really gets to me is that this is what feminist have been trying to do; teach men not to rape, and yet he says “No! I don’t want to listen to this man-hater! She thinks all sex is rape! Feminist are evil and need to die in a fire!!!111!”
There is no pleasing the misogynist; he just wants to create large messes [economic, political, etc] and then blame it on women; women cause rape, women are why we’re broke, women are why there’s war, women are why the family is falling apart, women are why men cheat, women are why men abuse, etc.

And I think this is why he has to work so hard in silencing women; so that we don’t call him out on his shenanigans. And this is also why he hates feminism so much, because it does just that. I actually think one of the definitions of feminism should be: Viewing the world, sex, politics, media through the female gaze. And this is why men can’t be feminist, but can benefit from it. I also think that the only way the female gaze can become stronger is through the sisterhood; through us sharing our views, wisdom and experiences with each other. And this is why I think he’s so threaten by feminism; because it allows for women’s voices to go uncensored and to become powerful.

Hang on. Many transwomen have been in het relationships. Many have children. They should have some knowledge of the female anatomy. Argh. They’re so crazy making. None of it makes sense on any planet. They just expect us to smile and nod, smile and nod, smile and nod at whatever they say, no matter how stupid it is.

I’m just catching up here after being away on vacay for awhile, but OMG! That play! It sounds like propaganda written for “The Women’s Home Campanion” in the 1930s! ROFLMAO!!!! REAL women did not talk like this even in the 1890s!!!

In one session she grasped on to an incident of “misgendering” that had happened in her presence (I had said something like “Why can’t he understand?”). He had fled from the room in a dramatic tizzy of tears. She stated to me in a firm voice that she is prohibited from working with couples where there is domestic abuse. In other words, I was being accused of being an abuser. This almost drove me mad with pain and self-doubt …what if it really is me? Am *I* an abuser?”

I’ve seen some M2T people on message boards that don’t know anything about the female reproductive system. They think that frankengina fuck-hole is better than anything nature could come up with. Then they talk about getting a uterus implanted into their male body, which isn’t set up for a uterus. Whose eggs are you going to put in that uterus? They won’t be your eggs, dude.

There’s talk lately about uterus implants for men in a few years, after doctors announced that uterus implant in a woman. But I don’t see MTFs wanting to get pregnant. It would ruin their girlish figures.

I am a woman, and don’t have any of the male traits, nor do I feel 100% safe in their company.

I do prefer men sexually, but never feel comfortable when they get possessive/aggressive etc….or get predatory.

However, I do relate to the suicide side of it all, sometimes, I do feel sad, incomplete and very lonely….and ask myself why other people don’t have take loads of hormones daily just to be themselves…..so you are the lucky ones not to be in my shoes. Thanks

All “trans females” are by definition male driven, because you are all male. As a male all your traits are by definition, male traits. It’s understandable that you feel sad incomplete and lonely because the trans thing is not a helpful adaptation to life’s challenges for most, if any, people. It’s a dead end that ends in madness and despair for too many. No one needs to take loads of hormones to be themselves. The alternative is to be oneself and fight to change the culture as feminists have done and are doing for women. Do not come to a feminist blog and tell women we are lucky that we are forced to fight instead of take drugs. Do not come to a women’s space to whine about the constrictions placed on males in occupying the overlord role. Do not insult women by reducing our entire female humanity to a feeling a man can have in his head. Thanks